I agree with OP and I'm one of the lucky women she describes. A lot in life is totally unfair, inexplicable luck. And more and more so these days as things like jobs, university applications, all that, become winner-take-all, so that having even a very slight edge in talent or background or effort can make you multiple times richer than someone who just barely barely came second.
I'm not good-looking and I came from a very poor background. DH and I were 18 when we met and neither of us could have predicted he would do so well. In retrospect there were some things that might explain it. He isn't at all academic (most of the people I see who've done well in business and finance seem to be if anything less intelligent than the brightest, who became artists, teachers, nurses and librarians). But he came from what at the time seemed to me like a quite rich background (public school and Oxbridge) -- now I see his family weren't all that rich, but in that generation private school fees were proportionately much lower and university was free, but his privileges were certainly enough to make me feel put off and suspicious for a long time, shall we say. He was very foreign to me and his family were not at all delighted by me.
On the other hand he was (and is) a very kind, moral, trustworthy man. I do think that helped him do well in work -- people do prefer to hire/work with people they like and trust. And it is certainly the reason I fell for him.
It is also true he works very, very hard it always strikes me as hilarious on MN when other women suggest their husbands should take time off because they're ill he carries two phones and answers them any time of the day or night, I had to give up work in the end to support his career, he has gained lots of weight from stress and lack of time to exercise, he spends at least half the year away on work trips, etc etc. He also never, ever gives up -- I think this is partly a function of his self-confidence, but he's also just very tough; when he meets a check he gets right back up and keeps on trying till he gets what he wants. (That IS how he got me!) But I look around me and I see plenty of much poorer people who work much harder (manual) jobs that wreck their bodies by the time they're 50, or more necessary jobs like looking after refugees, the elderly, the disabled. Including my own sister, by the way, whom we regularly have to bail out with subsidies in between our multiple foreign holidays.
So it is really luck: partly that he was one of the few who made it near the top, partly that his job field (finance, of course) became inexplicably better-paid and more respected in a way that couldn't have been predicted when we were younger.
And yes, money really is a good thing to have. When I couldn't get pregnant, we were able to fund 10 years of fertility treatments to have two and adopted a third, which was even more expensive. (Lots and lots of lawyers!) When one of the DC then turned out to be quite seriously disabled, we could pay for private schooling till our lawyers managed to force the local education authority to issue a statement. When I then became terribly depressed, and was ultimately diagnosed with an auto-immune disease, we could pay for cleaners and nannies at home to cope when I was struggling to get out of bed, for mental-health counselling and for private medicine when needed (though quite honestly I'd always recommend the NHS for better medical care, despite delays and red tape). I think the money also has bought me a sense of safety that I would not otherwise have had (even though leaving my own job in other ways undermined my self-worth), because I mostly feel not afraid of bolshy people pushing me around or situations we can't afford.
So what have I learned?
- It's not true that rich people are usually not nice. Most of them are very nice, actually. Feeling secure and successful makes people happy. This is true in marriage as well: sex and money are the two most common causes for fights between couples, and one of those has been largely wiped out. It's not my experience that rich men marry dumb pretty women and then bully them to stay slim and young; some may, just as some blue-collar workers may, but the ones we know have mostly married for love. Sometimes to secretaries, but then the financial world remains heavily male-dominated, so who else do they meet? And what's wrong with secretaries? -- the ones I've met have often been at least as bright and organised as their husbands. And the husbands are very dependent on their wives for shelter from the pressure of their careers.
2.Most people, at least in western democracies, are rich through their own earnings nowadays and not inheritance. Yes, some people have real advantages of schooling, and therefore confidence, but longer life expectancies and taxation mean we don't know anyone who's actually inherited much, and those who may will get it late enough that it will be dwarfed by their own lifetime earnings. Okay, there's Tamara Ecclestone, but even her father was self-made. But see above: the fact that you've "earned" so much money doesn't necessarily mean you deserve so much more than everyone else. Some rich people do gradually forget this.
- Money may not buy happiness, but it can help prevent a lot of unhappiness. I find people who claim money doesn't matter are the people who've never not had at least some money. Sure, we may still suffer losses, stillbirths, infertility, domestic abuse, illness; but not any more often than people without money, and when we do the money can help us.
- Not only is our world unfair, but it feels like it's getting worse. The concept of "meritocracy" implies that people who haven't succeeded in earning money are to blame for their own "failure," they're somehow less worthy. And the world is increasingly winner-takes-all: you're either rich or you're struggling, with seemingly little in between. It's harder to get into Oxbridge. It's harder to find a first job. Housing costs more. Even for people with my background (not to hijack the thread, but I was a refugee with my father as a teenager) things are much harder now: if I were now in the situation I was in at 14, chances are high I would spend all of my life in a refugee camp with little access to education, jobs, or even basic safety. International law defines refugees surprisingly narrowly (how many of you realise that people fleeing war in Syria are not legitimate asylum seekers under the UN definition?) and countries, which have the latitude to enforce those laws, are increasingly harsh in their interpretation.
So yeah, my husband and I look at each other pretty much every day and ask each other, "How did we get so lucky?" Sometimes he does, in truth, get grumpy and say he's earned his luck, but I am always here reminding him, we are lucky lucky lucky. I really do wish the rest of you luck too!